Lady Pilgrims come out strong early in Win over Laville
by Ryan Carroll, SPORTSTOTHEMAX.NET correspondent
It was much of the same for the Plymouth Lady Pilgrims in a 65-19 victory over the visiting LaVille Lady Lancers last night. A balanced scoring attack and stingy defense were the keys for the second straight game to start the season.
Plymouth jumped out to an early lead with eight unanswered points to start the game against the Lady Lancer zone defense. Haley Harrell found Nicole Horvath under the basket to open the scoring. She then found Hunter Stevens for another assist and had her third assist in a row when she connected with Kaydon Fosler on an out-of bound-play. An offensive rebound and put-back by Horvath finished the run with 4:30 left in the quarter.
Plymouth went on another run highlighted by back-to-back-to-back three pointers by Harrell and ended the quarter up 19-4.
The Lady Lancers switched to a man-to-man defense in the second quarter but it was more of the same offensive output for Plymouth. This time the ball moved more through the hands of Stevens and Fosler as the two were able to cut and drive through the defense for points in the paint.
Unselfish play and a balanced offensive attack seemed to be the theme of the night for Plymouth. The Lady Pilgrims assisted on 20 of the 26 made field goals in the game and had 4 players score in double digits.
“Our kids are sharing the ball well the first couple of games,” said Duncan. “When your shot results from an assist your percentage is going to be a little bit higher.”
And higher it was. The Lady Pilgrims shot 55% from the field for the game following a 45% shooting night at Peru last week.
Even with the offensive production, it is the defense that Duncan is most excited about. Plymouth was able to hold the Lady Lancers to 19% shooting and forced 23 turnovers.
“I thought defensively, the things that we work on in practice, we brought to the game,” said Duncan. “Our kids were chopping their feet, they were not using their hands, and they were getting to spots. Those are things we try to teach in practice.”
Allie Wright was the catalyst to the defensive effort. Even though some of her stats don’t show up on the box score, Duncan knows that the defense runs through her.
“The kids know that,” said Duncan. “Allie’s pressure allows our wing players to get up a little bit into the passing lanes.”
Harrell led the scoring effort for the Lady Pilgrims with 14 points, followed closely by Stevens (13), Shannon Stephenson (11) and Fosler (10). Harrell had 5 assists on the night, Stevens had 4 steals and Horvath led the team with 5 rebounds.
LaVille was led McKenzie Leed’s 5 points and 3 steals. Nina Sadjak pulled down 4 rebounds for the Lady Lancers.
Plymouth returns to action on Thursday with a special road game at Triton High School. The two teams will be playing in a “Hoops for Hope” game. There will be shirts for sale and other opportunities to help the teams raise awareness and money to donate to Ounce of Prevention to help them help families affected by breast cancer in our communities. Game time is set with a JV tip-off at 6:00PM.
LaVille will next face Rochester at home on Friday. The JV game is set to start at 6:00PM with the varsity game to follow.
